Easy Vegan Cinnamon Buns

Grab yourself a napkin because you might be drooling a little while reading this recipe. I’ve got Easy Vegan Cinnamon Buns for you today, and this recipe is a game changer. I hacked this recipe so these vegan cinnamon rolls are as easy as possible to make. No yeast. No rising. Only 10 ingredients. No weird ingredients. Freezable. Completely addictive ← you have been warned.

I figured out a way to make tender, moist, pull apart, vegan cinnamon buns without messing around with yeast. Sure, these cinnamon rolls have several steps to prepare them (that’s the nature of cinnamon rolls I’m afraid), but I made sure to include lots of pictures of each step so that you can see for yourself that every step is actually pretty easy.

And then you get to eat these ↓↓↓

Drooooooool…

Not only are these vegan cinnamon rolls easy to make, but they will keep fresh for several days. I even tested freezing them finished with icing and all, and you know what? I left them on the counter to thaw and they came back perfectly to fluffy, tender, icing glazed life. YUM!

To make easy vegan cinnamon buns: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add in the vegan butter cubes and use a pastry cutter or fork to cut the butter into the flour until you reach a grainy texture.

Pour in the non-dairy milk and combine to make a shaggy dough.

Either in the bowl or on a clean work surface use your hands to knead the dough together incorporating any leftover dry ingredients until it all comes together into a nice ball. Let the dough rest in the bowl for 10 – 15 minutes before proceeding. Resting allows the dough to get stretchy which is a must for gorgeous pull apart cinnamon buns!

Once the dough has rested, lightly flour a clean work surface and roll the dough with a rolling pin until you get a rectangle about 19″ x 14″.

Pour the melted vegan butter over the rolled out dough and use a pastry brush or the back of a spoon to spread evenly over the dough. In a small bowl mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over the melted butter.

Starting from a longer side of the dough rectangle, use your hands to gently roll the dough up.

Once rolled, use a sharp knife to cut 12 cinnamon rolls by gently sawing with the knife.

*I like to mark out each bun by lightly scoring the surface of the roll before doing the final cuts, to ensure even sized cinnamon buns.

Place the cinnamon buns in the baking dish, swirl side up, and bake for 24 – 28 minutes until puffed up and lightly golden. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

If making the icing (and you should make the icing), combine the powdered sugar, vegan butter, vanilla extract, and lemon juice or non-dairy milk in a small bowl.

*I like using lemon juice to add a little bit of tang to the icing- similar to cream cheese frosting, but if you want an all sweet icing opt for non-dairy milk.

Spread the icing roughly over the still warm cinnamon buns. The icing will melt into the cinnamon buns a little. YUM!

Preheat your oven to 400F (200C). Line with parchment paper or grease a 9"x 12" baking dish. *Make sure you use a 9" x 12" pan or equivalent. For the cinnamon buns to stay soft they need to expand into each other. If they have too much room around each bun, they can end up getting crispy. I used the one from this baking set.

Make the dough: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add in the vegan butter cubes and use a pastry cutter or fork to cut the butter into the flour until you reach a grainy texture. Pour in the non-dairy milk and combine to make a shaggy dough.

Either in the bowl or on a clean work surface use your hands to knead the dough together incorporating any leftover dry ingredients until it all comes together into a nice ball. Let the dough rest in the bowl for 10 - 15 minutes before proceeding for the best dough texture. Resting allows the dough to get stretchy which is a must for gorgeous pull apart cinnamon buns!

Roll the dough: Once the dough has rested, lightly flour a clean work surface and roll the dough with a rolling pin until you get a rectangle about 19" x 14".

Cinnamon sugar filling: Pour the melted vegan butter over the rolled out dough and use a pastry brush or the back of a spoon to spread evenly over the dough. In a small bowl mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over the melted butter.

Roll your cinnamon buns: Starting from a longer side of the dough rectangle, use your hands to gently roll the dough up. Once rolled, use a sharp knife to cut 12 cinnamon rolls by gently sawing with the knife. I like to mark out each bun by lightly scoring the surface of the roll before doing the final cuts, to ensure even sized cinnamon buns.

Bake: Place the cinnamon buns in the baking dish, swirl side up, and bake for 24 - 28 minutes until puffed up and lightly golden. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Optional icing: Combine the powdered sugar, vegan butter, vanilla extract, and lemon juice or non-dairy milk together in a small bowl. *I like using lemon juice to add a little bit of tang to the icing- similar to cream cheese frosting, but if you want an all sweet icing opt for non-dairy milk. Spread the icing roughly over the still warm cinnamon buns. The icing will melt into the cinnamon buns a little. YUM!

OH MY GOODNESS! We watched your video as well to make sure we made these exactly right. We too did a happy dance and said ” Why are these SO GOOD??!!” 🙂 Wish we could post pics on here. Those were award winning cinnamon rolls. I am buying your book today on Amazon for a birthday gift to a friend.

Made these several times and always all gone within a day. I’ve got some raspberries needing to be used. Any ideas on how to incorporate them into this…maybe same process for filling only sub cinnamon with raspberries? Thank you for all your delicious recipes!

Delicious! Mine turned out like individual rolls because I misread the instruction about putting them closer together. However they still tasted amazing and I will be making this again. My family (who are not vegans) loved them. The rolls are quite large so I might make them smaller next time.

Earth balance is a great vegan butter brand. If you google a bit you’ll find vegan butter recipes made with refined coconut oil, lemon, lecthicin, a neutral oil and plant milk. I make my own butter now that the quarantine situation has made grocery shopping tedious.

Like others, I’m making these during quarantine and I wanted to try this recipe because it doesn’t call for anything I don’t usually have in my pantry. I followed it exactly and I’m very surprised how good and easy these are! I recommend putting a little melted butter in the dish for those worried they will be dry or hard. Thank you for the great recipe!

Hi Justine! I do have a cookbook. It’s actually in it’s 7th printing and is currently out of stock most places, but the newest shipment should be hitting stores soon. You can learn more about it here 🙂

Made these with coconut oil (in the proper sized pan) and placed them close together. Didn’t turn out at all. They are crispy like biscuits (after 24 min cooking). The dough isn’t very sweet, why no sugar in the dough? Cinammon buns are also supposed to be brown on the sides, these are all white, even in the demo pics. Definitely wouldn’t make these again 🙁 sorry.

These were great! They were slightly dry for my taste but everyone loved them. I was wondering if it’s because I had a 9×13″ dish instead of 9×12 but I looked for 9x12s and they’re really hard to find. Is 9×13 ok, and would it be better to slightly increase the recipe or something to ensure they rise perfectly? Thanks!

These are amazing! Even my non-vegan husband loved them! Someone said they are like biscuit consistency so just wanted to let everyone reading the comments know that my “testers” (the two end pieces) did come out like biscuits but I had them in the toaster oven at 450, so that’s probably why. The ones in the big oven came out perfectly! So as long as you follow the directions these are amazing, soft cinnamon rolls.

They were pretty good, but I feel like the cinnamon buns consistency was more like a biscuit than actual cinnamon bun compared to various other vegan cinnamon bun recipes I’ve used in the past. Still good though

Thank you so much for this delicious recipe, I have intolerance to most animal products and yeast, so this has brought cinnamon rolls back into my life! I’ve made these close to 10 times now, and they’ve turned out incredible every time! I’ve followed the recipe most times, but also used gluten-free flour a couple of times because of some of my friends that can’t have gluten – in this case I use a bit less milk, also rolling is a bit more complicated, but possible, and they still come out soo delicious!

I am going to make these, Sam. I, too, am not a cinnamon lover but have a wonderful alternative for those who also do not. I mix 1 teaspoon of ground coriander powder with 1/4 teaspoon of ground cardamon and make a 1/2 cup batch. Put in a small glass spice jar and it keeps just like you would cinnamon. I then sub 1 to 1 ratio in recipes. It works great and tastes great!

Thank you SO much for this amazing recipe! Our 11 year old daughter has had to go dairy free this year. One of our traditions Christmas morning is to enjoy cinnamon rolls. Your recipe allowed me to still make this happen for her. I have never really worked with dough of any kind and was a little nervous. It went very smoothly. All agreed these were better than any store bought ones and tasted super good the following morning too. For anyone else reading this, I assembled them 24 hours ahead of time then baked them Christmas morning. We did double the frosting too.

I’m planning my Thanksgiving food this weekend and these definitely need to be the breakfast menu! I am so intimidated by cinnamon rolls, but I watched your YouTube video a couple months ago and read the recipe and I can totally do this! 🙂

Hi Sam, cinnamon rolls look so yummy I’m going to give the recipe ago this weekend. Could I ask how many grams a cup of butter would be please as I’m in the U.K. Also do you think cashew milk would work in this recipe. Thank you.

Hi Rita, at the bottom of the ingredient list you will see the option to have the recipe in either US Customary or Metric. Just hit the metric button and it will show the ingredients in grams. 🙂 And yes, cashew milk will work fine 🙂

LOVE them. I can be a little lazy when it comes to baking but when I saw the simple list of ingredients and no yeast I knew I had to make them! It’s 11:30pm and I just ate one warm from the oven~ Delicious! My kids will love them for breakfast tomorrow! Thank you

OMG!!! These are AWESOME! I made a half batch and the house smells as amazing as they taste. I did mine in my toaster oven at 375 for 20 minutes. My frosting ended up being more of a glaze, but still tasted good. I think next time I’ll just pick up a can of frosting at the store and smear it on, lol! Thanks so much for the wonderful easy recipe. 🙂

I’m not too fond of making dough, so I had been reluctant to make this recipe. Today I made it and used it to make a Mardi Gras King Cake. It turned out grand! The dough was easier than I had anticipated, the dough looked just like your picture and I’m very happy with my results! Thank you!

So I added too much non-dairy milk and then ran out of flour. Have you seen that meme “make up tutorial with 8 easy steps for smoky eyes” and the DIY result is what looks like a bruised goth? The equivalent of that happened with my cinnamon rolls but they were still yum! 😛

As most have already said, these are delicious! I doubled the frosting and ate 2 (yes, I can be a bit of a glutton), and thoroughly enjoyed both. One of my kids came in and when I told her they were vegan, she took a tentative bite, and then dove right in, exclaiming she couldn’t believe a vegan cinnamon roll could taste that good. We have also really been enjoying your tofu bites. Thank you for the great recipes!

I made these last night and they are amazing!!! I seriously wasn’t expecting it bc I’ve been trying to perfect my biscuit making lately (I have a recipe not yours and they key I guess is to not overwork the dough) so I felt like I was overworking it when I made the buns and was expecting the worse from myself haha but they turned out amazing and I love how they delicately break apart, not tough or super chewy. Even a day later we’re eating them cold from the fridge and they’re still so so good! Just wanted to thank you for all the work you put into these tried and true recipes. <3

I made these last night, I needed a little more milk than the recipe called for. But it came together great. These are by far the most delicious cinnamon rolls I’ve made. They’re so buttery and soft. AMAZING. vegan and non vegan approved. This is a keeper.

These are super freaking delicious! Much less time consuming than yeast-raised cinnamon rolls (which are, indeed, yummy) but a hundred times better than biscuit-mix cinnamon rolls. I snacked on one immediately after removing them from the oven, and my family loved (what was left of them) later on. Perfection! I’m definitely a Sam Fan.

Yumm! I was drooling while watching you make them. I am your new subscriber and I want to make most of your recipes. Most definitely, I will buy your cookbook. I am a vegetarian, a rookie baker and cook, still learning and will keep on learning, staying away from sugar, gluten and fried foods. For the icing, can i use monk fruit to replace the powdered sugar? Or any suggestions. I am not diabetic, but staying bit clear on sugar. Lastly, any suggestions on the flour. Kinda healthy flour. Gluten free maybe is a good option. Will get your cookbook today. Thanks for sharing your recipes. Appreciate it.

Thanks Irena! So happy you are enjoying my recipes 🙂 For the icing, you can skip it entirely or replace it with any topping you like. I’ve never had the pleasure of playing around with monk fruit sweetener, so I have no idea how that works. I’m not an expert in gluten-free baking but I have heard good things about Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1. I hope you love my book. Enjoy!

Hi Sam I am celebrating being vegan for three years this January and one of the first bloggers i discovered when looking for inspiration was you, I use your book all the time for the fudge, tomato sauce recipe and the mozzarella and nacho cheese sauce as well as many of your online recipes, so thank you for making being vegan so much easier. I cannot stand the taste of cinnamon so wonder if you could substitute that ingredient for cocoa powder or jam or something like that? what do you think? thanks again and keep up the great work Wendy

I’ve always made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and this was my first year making them vegan. I prepped them last night, baked them this morning, and they were amazing! I got so many compliments on them. I doubled the frosting (using fresh lemon juice) because we are all big frosting fans 🙂 Thanks so much for the recipe, this will be my new go to!

Another winner! Thanks so much, Sam. Made these for my family while on vacation this week; shared some with a neighbor who also asked to read a piece I had written about for work, and the combination made her say that she “gets vegan”

I cannot get over your cookbook and your recipes! Honestly each and every one is absolutely amazing and easy to make! I made these and they were incredible and the easiest cinnamon buns I’ve ever made. I do have a question. I am taking these to a pot luck, can i make the dough a day before and then stick it in the fridge for the next day? Thanks!

Tried to make them just now but couldn’t get the dough to not be extremely sticky. Used the ingredients exactly like mentioned above with soy milk. The dough kept being sticky even after adding another cup of flour. After rolling it up and cutting it the rolls fell apart completely. Any tips :(?

Hi Sabrina, it’s difficult to know without being in the kitchen with you, but it sounds like there must have been a measurement off somewhere along the way. The dough is actually pretty dry to start and takes a bit of work to incorporate all the flour, so it’s pretty far from sticky. Sorry, I can’t be more help! Best of luck next time!

These look delicious! I am allergic to cinnamon and was thinking about using orange marmalade as the filling. Knowing that you haven’t tried this method, could you provide an educated guess as to how I would add the filling? Like would you recommend mixing the marmalade with butter or just put the marmalade on the dough? Any other suggestions? Again, I know I’m asking for a suggestion for something you probably haven’t tried but I’m willing to take the chance! PS LOVE your cookbook. My 3yro has several protein allergies and your cookbook has given us so many delicious options. Thanks!

Dear Sam, I got your Cookbook and always wanted to comment on your recipes. But then I always get distracted eating the most delicious food ever! Never tried one thing I didn’t love. But now THESE happened and they are by far the BEST Treat ever in my life and I’m so happy that you created and shared this recipe! Thank you so much, lots of love :*

Thanks for this recipe. I used to have a recipe like this I used to love to make when I wanted cinnamon buns but didn’t want to use yeast. I complete forgot about it after going plant based. Looking forward to giving it a try. I’m sure it will be fantastic, as all your recipes are. Made the gingerbread cookies from your book with my granddaughter last weekend. They were a hit.

So happy you loved them!! The vanilla extract and vegan butter are what could tint the icing. I’m guessing it was the vanilla, perhaps the brand you were using was a bit more rich in colour than the one I had. You could try buying clear vanilla extract to avoid this problem completely. Enjoy!

I think you may have forgotten to mention what state the “butter” should be, in re the frosting. Butter can be (a) melted, (b) soft (but not melted), (c) room-temperature, or (d) chilled. I am guessing that, for the frosting, it should be melted, yes?

One more question for the frosting: Could coconut oil be substituted for the vegan butter? Or would that give an unpleasant taste and/or texture? I ask b/c I rarely happen to have vegan butter, but I do have loads and loads of coconut oil…always looking for new uses for it. 🙂

Hi josh! No not melted. If I do not mention what state the butter should be in, that means just directly from the fridge is fine. If you have trouble mixing it in, you can let it soften a bit, but don’t melt it. Coconut oil can be substituted just fine. You won’t get the buttery taste, and it may be a bit thinner of icing, but should still be good. Enjoy!

I think that should work just fine! Just wrap tightly and store overnight in the fridge. You might need an extra minute or two of baking time if you are baking them straight from the cold fridge. Enjoy!

I made these cinnamon rolls last night and they came out AMAZING! I am so in love! All I had on hand was salted butter (I used Country Crock avocado oil plant based butter) so I excluded the salt that the recipe calls for. When it came time to put the rolls in the pan to bake, I’d read comments about how some people’s rolls were coming out crispy so I used a slightly smaller pan than what the recipe calls for (so they can expand into one another) and they came out soft, buttery and what you’d expect a good cinnamon roll to be like. I tried like 4 diff sized pans and chose one that all 12 fit snuggly in without there being any unnecessary space. I didn’t bake them for the full time called for (I stared checking on them around the 15 min. mark) and by then they were done (I also figured they would keep baking in the hot pan once I pulled them out of the oven anyways.) I made the powdered sugar icing and yes, while very sweet I added a little extra milk to help with the sweetness and to thin it out some. Seriously such a great recipe! I will definitely be making these again and plan on giving some to friends and family to try! Thank you SO much for creating this recipe!!!

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